Cuba’s ongoing population collapse continued throughout 2025 with record-low birthrates and the exodus of a quarter of a million Cubans, the communist Castro regime admitted in an official report this week.

Cuba has experienced nine consecutive years of a population collapse marked by an ongoing migrant exodus of Cubans fleeing from communism, the lowest birth rates ever recorded in the nation, and a remaining aging population that the Castro regime has recently described as the most aged in all of Latin America and the Caribbean.

This week, Cuba’s National Office of Statistics and Information (ONEI) published a new demographic status report acknowledging the precarious state of Cuba’s demographic composition and the ongoing collapse of its dwindling population. According to ONEI, there were 9,434,593 inhabitants left in Cuba by the end of 2025 — 313,414 fewer than the 9.7 million documented in 2024.

A man pushes his bicycle along a trash-strewn street in Havana, Cuba, Tuesday, June 9, 2026. (AP Photo/Ramon Espinosa)

Cuba reportedly had a population of over 11.2 million in 2017, which effectively means it has lost at least 16 percent of its population over the past years. Independent studies, however, reportedly affirm that Cuba could have lost as many as 24 percent of its entire population in that same period.

The Madrid-based outlet Diario de Cuba pointed out that the nation’s population may actually be fewer than what the Castro regime affirmed in its latest report.

According to Diario de Cuba, ONEI omits to disclose that the majority of Cubans who leave from their country are aged between 20 and 40 years, which further jeopardizes the nation’s potential population growth. The outlet stressed that the Castro regime also considers every Cuban who has spent 180 days in the nation in any calendar year as part of Cuba’s “effective population,” alongside new births.

The independent outlet 14 y Medio reported on Wednesday that 313,414 Cubans left their country in 2025, of which 72,056 returned. As a result, 245,264 Cubans effectively left their nation last year — an amount comparable to the over 307,000 that left in 2024, the 330,000 that left in 2023, and the over 500,000 that left in 2022.

Of the total, 98,773 Cubans who fled from their country last year resided in the capital city of Havana, while Matanzas, Villa Clara, Santiago de Cuba, and Camagüey lost about 20,000 each. Other cities, cities such Holguín, Santi Spíritus, Cienfuegos, and Ciego de Ávila lost anywhere between 10,000 and 15,000 inhabitants in 2025.

Cuban President Miguel Diaz-Canel marches during a rally to protest the killing of Cuban officers during the U.S. operation in Venezuela that captured Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro outside the U.S. Embassy in Havana, Cuba, Friday, Jan. 16, 2026. (AP Photo/Ramon Espinosa)

Although the exodus of Cubans fleeing from communism has further reduced the nation’s population totals, it is not the only factor contributing to the collapse of Cuba’s population. According to ONEI, Cuba’s natural growth rate was measured at minus 7.1 per 1,000 inhabitants, “which means our country is losing population even before accounting for migration.”

Dwindling birth rates are further worsening the nation’s demographic collapse. The Castro regime admitted in its report that 2025 saw only 68,064 documented births — the lowest number registered by the nation’s communist authorities over the past decades. In contrast, there were at least 136,214 documented deaths, slightly more than double the number of births. The child mortality rate was measured at a rate of 9.9 per 1,000 births.

Children run past a pile of trash accumulated on a street during a blackout in Havana, Cuba, Monday, July 6, 2026. (AP Photo/Ramon Espinosa)

Equally alarming, the nation’s communist authorities measure a Total Fertility Rate of 1.29 children per women for the second year in a row, a number that the Castro regime admitted is the lowest since 1958.

According to ONEI, 26.7 percent of Cuba’s remaining population is now over the age of 60, which leaves the nation’s population as the most aged one in the entire region. Furthermore, the Cuban regime’s statistics office acknowledged that the nation has lost more than 1.25 million people of working age over the past five years.

Christian K. Caruzo is a Venezuelan writer and documents life under socialism. You can follow him on Twitter here.